How many of you think you have made the most sacrifices in your relationship? In one-way or another you feel that you have invested a great deal of emotional and physical energy into your relationship. On the other hand, your husband may feel that his own emotional and physical needs haven’t been met or fulfilled and are now no longer considered. He has to compete for your attention with his children. Sex is no longer top of your agenda on Saturday night. Indeed, you are prepared to sacrifice ‘The Sex’ for a good nights sleep. What is it that has caused this divide of opinion and your relationship blip? Life is what’s happened. During your relationship you have had to face and cope with a multitude of events that make being a couple, married or otherwise the challenge for survival, culminating yearly in celebrating each anniversary.
After all, you were once so in love, the sex was great and you couldn’t keep your hands off each other. What type of relationship were you really looking for? Did you want to be a kept woman, a career woman or superwoman, juggling your career with your growing families needs? Did you actually make the choice on your own, or with your husband, or did you quite simply fall into the situation that you now wish to repair or exit?
When you married you both thought you would be together forever. You would be eternally happy and content with each other. You wouldn’t be part of the divorce statistics. You probably envisaged his career taking off and you raising the family. Did you discuss this prior to marriage and the other fundamental topics that a couple should discuss before making a commitment to each other? Or did you just drive headlong into the relationship without any real thought to the future and any plan? You may both assume that your roles would be similar to your parents, traditional. Why would your marriage be any different?
For couples starting out now I would suggest that you make sure that the foundations of your relationship are rock steady. Happiness, respect, communication, love, spending time together and valuing each other are some of the important parts that form this solid base. If your relationship is not built on a solid foundation then everything else will start to crumble eventually over time. Believe you me, it really does happen, and you don’t want to invest copious years in a relationship only to have it collapse to the ground at the smallest of tremors. You can’t ignore the cracks even if the sex is fantastic. A friend said to me once that when one of her boyfriend’s decided to end their relationship he informed her that, ‘ You can’t wallpaper over the cracks with sex’.
This brings me back to the foundation of our relationships. Were your foundations initially unstable? Did you just avoid the inevitable decisions in the first place? Possibly.
Biologically women have the children and this places us in this vulnerable position where the choices we make on picking our soul mate determine our fate and our future!
Your future is clearly in your hands. You can determine the path that you want to take as a couple or as a single woman. You may be willing just to survive your marriage, divorce or loss of your relationship but surely you owe it to yourself to survive it successfully. As women we make the most sacrifices. Don’t make YOU the biggest sacrifice of all!
Written by Fiona G Laycy
‘Women on Top, 69 Positions to Success – and Saving Your Relationship or Not’ is your survival guide to marriage and divorce. It will help you through the hard times and provide you with examples of how to tackle life with courage and laughter – whether you decide to keep your marriage or not. To find out more about this essential guide to marriage – click the cover image.